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Standardby Julie3 Comments

The apples are coming. The peaches are here. I know it’s early – someone said August is like the Sunday afternoon of summer – but bins of apples are arriving in farmers’ markets alongside late summer peaches – and both make me want to eat fritters. This colossal Sundaynightitis and the mere suggestion of shorter days and cooler nights triggers my need for comfort food something fierce. These photos should be out in an orchard, on a rustic wood board with apples that still have their stems – and maybe an ever so slightly curled leaf – for optimal effect. But it’s one of the last of the vintage dinette tabletops – the pink and blue so many art directors I know shudder to see peeking out from under my food – and at the bottom, a scrap of the material that’s now on our ceilings. And I’m getting all sniffy at the thought that the table might not be going back – I’m thinkingContinue reading

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Standardby Julie19 Comments

Can we have peach week please? There’s still time. Did something go awry with peach season, or does it always linger this late? Looking at the ginormous bins of peaches alongside tomatoes, peppers and zucchini feels like every year at Easter, when I wonder aloud to anyone who might know whether it’s the Friday or Monday that’s the holiday? And who gets it off again? And what day do you hunt for eggs and eat the ham? And why can’t I remember how it goes from year to year? Maybe I’m overthinking things, but it’s never a bad idea to stock up on peaches when they might be the last of the season. Awake with insomnia, skimming food blogs I haven’t visited in awhile, pondering what to do with all those peaches (it’s what I do) I came across Delicious Days (hello, old friend!) at about midnight last night, and on it this tangy peach ketchup, which is really like a pureed chutney. Sweet, vinegaryContinue reading

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Standardby Julie8 Comments

The peaches are in! I know I’ve taken you down the skillet jam road before… with a larger surface area, a skillet makes a great tool for cooking down fruit and sugar to make just enough for a single pot (or jar) of jam to tuck in the fridge. It’s a great way to take care of surplus stone fruit starting to soften and/or become a hub for fruit flies. Bonus: you can see your jam thicken, so there’s no need for hard boiling and thermometers. To peel your peaches – something I rarely do, but did here – just plunge them into a pot of boiling water for a minute or two. Once they cool (you could put them in a bowl of cold water to speed this up) you can peel the skins away with your fingers. Ripe peaches you’ll be able to squish with your hands, right into the pan. Otherwise, use a knife and chop it in. At first it willContinue reading

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Standardby Julie26 Comments

Today was brought to you by the letter P: Peaches and Pie and Pierre. I Prepared a Pretty Perfect Pie this morning. We were talking about pastry, and not five minutes after deciding on a topic yesterday I received a brand-new cookbook, one that instantly took a place of honour beside my bed (yes, this is why we only have one child). The Harrow Fair Cookbook was inspired by the annual agricultural fair in Harrow, Ontario that began in 1854. In this book are recipes for everything from blue-ribbon pies to farmstand salads, fritters, ice cream, fried chicken and preserves. It’s so directly up my alley. The authors, sisters Moira Sanders and Lori Elstone, wrote the book because they have such fond memories of attending the Harrow Fair as children. Their book is based on the principle that what we eat today should be as natural as it was 156 years ago, when the fair was established. If it includes pies like this first-place-ribbon-winning-peaches-and-cream beauty,Continue reading

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Standardby Julie48 Comments

I started to get a little panicky this morning when I realized that it was past mid-August and I hadn’t yet made a pie. So I made up my mind to, because a) Sunday afternoons are the best pie-baking days, b) we were going to my mom-in-law’s for dinner and wanted to deflect the inevitable stale yellow sponge cake discs she tries to pass off as strawberry shortcake, and 3) W is currently obsessed with James and the Giant Peach (the DVD, which we got from the library last week), which has subliminally (or obviously) made us crave big peach flavours. When I told Mike I was making pie and asked for requests, he didn’t even pause. So I went to the market and bought some peaches, and set about making pie. But all pie must have cream of some sort – whipped or ice – and since the ice cream machine was already on the counter, I decided to give roasted peach ice creamContinue reading

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